Despite that spring is my favourite season, it seems that I’ve written few stories set during the three months between the end of March and June. It’s a period that defines new life, a new start, new beginnings and people tend to be blessed with a certain air of positivity and relaxation. Spring for me means bees and cider (amongst other things!) What sort of a new beginnings can we explore in our fiction? Continue reading
ebooks
Book Review: Better Off Dead by Matthew Rowe
Imagine a far-flung future London (Londinium) where humans are as rare as Inuits are today in the same city. Imagine one where Supernaturals are the norm – vampires (which thankfully do not sparkle), werewolves, zombies etc. Imagine a quasi medieval city with fire-breathing dragons and you have a good idea of the background to the story. It has an element of Pratchett about it (and even a few very well appreciated Pratchett in-jokes) and the speed of humour on a par with Robert Rankin – high praise indeed from me. Continue reading
A Sci Fi Romance Story for Valentine’s Day
Yes it is that time of year again, the time that lovers buy each other chocolates and flowers, go out for a meal and sip wine into the small hours and generally revel in how loved up they feel. Well, not for everyone. Want a bit of romance in your reading? Believe it or not, I have written something with a slight smidgen of cupid’s arrow. I don’t expect to make a habit of it and the story still has its roots firmly planted in sci fi. Continue reading
Make Your NY Resolution to Read More
Hrrenvolk and Other Stories
It’s dark, it’s cold and if you live in the UK at the moment the endless stream of hurricanes is probably getting you down. You can’t go out in that and after the excesses of Christmas you probably can’t afford to go out. Maybe you decided to set yourself a New Year’s Resolution to read more? It’s cheaper than a night out at a club and you don’t have to get an overpriced taxi back home afterwards. Do you want to support an indie published author? Perhaps my recently released short story collection (Herrenvolk and Other Stories) might aid that. It has ten short stories featuring science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Start with a bit of light reading for these dark, miserable evenings. Read a light-hearted short story about a dinner date with a science fiction twist. In a post climate-change world, two people out for an intimate meal have very different ideas about the meaning of the world “travel”. Continue reading
Angel’s Mass: A Ghost Story for Christmas
Below is an excerpt from my Christmas ghost story Angel’s Mass from the volume Herrenvolk and Other Stories. It is 1345 and the story is of young Brother Edmund of Tintern Abbey (south Wales) who is woken in the early hours of Christmas Eve by a ghostly voice calling him to the newly built church. What is the nature of the ghost? And what does it want with Brother Edmund? Find out in Herrenvolk and Other Stories, available exclusively on Amazon Kindle.
Get it now: amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | amazon.ca Continue reading
Who Wants a Free ebook?
Before I go giving away free stuff, I have good reason to be doing so. Finally, I unleash upon the world my first ebook collection. It is a collection of short stories going back right to when I started writing short stories regularly and putting my work on Elfwood – so some of these are 15 years old or more. They have been given significant editing and in some cases, new events have been inserted. In one or two cases, I have restored older material that never made it to Elfwood because I felt it was too long. There were some cases where I felt that the work suffered for having cut it down to that extent. Stories are as long as they need to be! The resulting work feels more complete. Continue reading
Book Review: Redeemer’s Oath by John Burkhart
This next indieview commission is (I think) the first fantasy I have been approached to read. Having given up on a couple before this I was really hoping to like this one. So what is the verdict? Well… Typhin is distraught. Having lost his wife to a nasty plague, it seems that his only child too is at death’s door. What is he to do? Enter a mysterious priest known as The Blessed. In his desperation, Typhin turns to The Blessed to save his daughter. All is well you might think. Unfortunately not. Continue reading
Book Review: Black Monastery by William Stacey
This is another book that has come to me through theindieview.com. I accepted willingly due to my interest and study of the early medieval period. It is a historical fantasy blending Viking and Eastern myth, telling the tale of a mysterious treasure located in the titular Black Monastery. However, the monks there have unleashed some ancient evils in the form of demons and ghosts.
OK, I need to get this off of my chest first. Some readers have commended the author for his research and this is good, mostly. Clearly the writer has an interest in the period – at least from the material point of view – however as an archaeologist who spent a couple of years studying the Vikings at undergraduate level, I was left with a few niggles. Continue reading
Goals for the Next Six Months
I’ve already discussed that I want to enter the James White Award and though I initially said that I would enter 50% Match?, they story I initially entered into Arcfinity, I’ve had a change of heart. I’m sure I have discussed this before but a couple of years ago I started a short story about a young boy who keeps having strange waking dreams in which he sees himself dressed as a nobleman on a sailing ship. Each dream sequence gets weirder, making it quite clear that this isn’t from anywhere or any time on Earth. Continue reading
Book Review: The End – Visions of Apocalypse (SFFWorld 2012 Anthology)
I’m reviewing this as a personal favour for one of my favourite blogging buddies, Nila E. White who is part of the SFFworld.com forum. Thanks guys for the review copy!
This is the sort of production that is really going to take off with the advent of digital publishing. Previously confined to small circulations in a fairly limited geographical radius, productions such as this anthology should go from strength to strength in the coming years – and about time. So what about this, the first volume from SFFWorld.com? Continue reading